Robotic surgical systems have been used in minimally invasive medical procedures. During such a medical procedure, the robotic surgical system is controlled by a surgeon interfacing with a user interface. The user interface allows the surgeon to manipulate an end effector that acts on a patient. The user interface includes an input controller or handle that is moveable by the surgeon to control the robotic surgical system.
Robotic surgical systems typically use a scaling factor to scale down the motions of the surgeons hands to determine the desired position of the end effector within the patient so that the surgeon can more precisely move the end effector inside the patient. Since the input device handle has a fixed range of motion, for larger scaling factors the surgeon may reach an end of the range of motion of an input handle more often. The surgeon then has to “clutch” the handle to decouple the motion of the input handles from the end effector so that the surgeon could move the handles to a new position within the workspace of the user interface away from the end of the range of motion while the instruments remain stationary. Once the input handle was moved sufficiently away from the end of the range of motion, the surgeon “reclutches” the input handle with the end effector to recouple the motion of the input handle to motion of the end effector to complete the desired movement of the end effector. Typically, a foot pedal is used as to “clutch” the input handle. This communicative decoupling between the motion of the input handles from the end effector, if not managed properly, may raise safety issues during the “clutching” window when the communicative decoupling occurs. Additionally, during some procedures it may be desirable to enable fine movement of the end effector during the repositioning of the handles so that the end effector does not remain stationary and more susceptible to collisions with other moving body parts or instruments while the input device handles are being repositioned.
There is a need for a robotic surgical system having an input device handle that can be easily repositioned without requiring traditional “clutching” that keeps the end effector stationary and/or communicatively decoupled from the input device during the repositioning.